Chapter 2: Wake Up, My Love
He didn't come in right away.
I heard his shoes on the narrow corridor carpet first. Soft, deliberate. Then his shadow filled the doorway. I kept my eyes closed and my phone pressed flat against my chest under the thin satin of my camisole. The screen was still warm. I could feel its light bleeding through the fabric even with my eyes shut, and I was sure he could see it.
He stood there and watched me breathe.
I had never tried to control my breathing so carefully in my life. I counted in my head. In for four, out for four. I let my lips part a little. I made my shoulders rise and fall evenly. My heart was hammering so hard I thought the vibration would travel through the mattress and give me away. The pills were tucked under the edge of the pillow on the far side, two small white circles with that scored line. I hadn't taken them.
"My love, wake up, you need some air."
His voice was low, calm, almost gentle. The same voice he'd used when he said "Drink it, my love, so you can sleep peacefully." He said it right next to the bed now, not from the doorway anymore. I hadn't heard him move.
I didn't answer. I let my eyelids flutter just enough, slow eye movement under the lids, the way I'd seen people look when they were really asleep.
He set something down on the nightstand. Glass on wood. The glass of water from the hallway. I smelled the faint chlorine of it.
His hand touched my shoulder. His fingers were warm. He gave me a light shake, then a little firmer one.
"My love," he said again. "You need some air. You're sweating."
I made a small sound in the back of my throat, like I was drugged and annoyed at being disturbed. I turned my head away from him, just an inch, and kept my eyes closed. My hand under the blanket curled slightly around the phone. I had to get it lower, under the camisole, flat against my ribs where the blanket would hide any glow.
He didn't pull his hand back. He brushed hair off my cheek with his knuckles. I felt his silver watch brush my skin, cold. I forced myself not to flinch. He leaned in and I could feel his breath.
Then his hand moved to the nightstand. I heard him pick up the glass, set it down again. He lifted something else. The small folded paper sleeve the pills had come in. Empty.
He was checking.
He lifted my hand next. The one I'd held the pills in. He turned it over gently, palm up, as if checking if I'd dropped them or hidden them. My palm was empty and damp with sweat. He stared at it for a second too long. I felt his grip tighten just a fraction.
"Mara?" he said. His calm cracked. "Did you take them?"
I let my hand go completely limp in his. I breathed out slowly through my mouth and made my head loll a little, like dead weight. I kept my eyes closed. After a second his fingers loosened.
He set my hand back down on the blanket. He smoothed the blanket over me, tucking it around my shoulders. That was when I moved. As he pulled the blanket up, I used the shift of fabric to slide the phone down, under the edge of my camisole and beneath the blanket's fold at my chest. The light vanished. The pressure against my ribs eased. Now it just felt like a hard rectangle against skin, hidden.
He stood. I listened through closed eyes as he checked the nightstand once more, opened the small drawer, closed it. He picked up the glass of water again and I heard him walk to the little sink in the corner of the cabin and pour it out. The pipes hissed.
He thought I was under. I could feel it in how his movements got faster, more efficient. He stepped back into the corridor and pulled the cabin door until it was only ajar, that same narrow line of warm tungsten light falling across the foot of the bed.
Then his phone buzzed.
He answered on the first ring, voice low, facing away from me down the hallway. I kept my eyes shut but I could hear every word through the gap.
"Yeah, she's out," he said. "No, she took both. She's not waking up." A pause. "We stay on schedule. 2:00 AM, like we said. You take it out then. I'll have her on the aft deck. Make it look right."
I didn't move. I kept breathing, slow, even, while his words settled cold in my chest. The glass was empty. The pills were still under my pillow. And he had just confirmed it all to someone else.
May you like
His footsteps moved farther down the corridor. He was still on the call, his voice getting fainter toward the stern.
I lay perfectly still, the phone hidden against my ribs, waiting for the hallway to go quiet.
